


All That We See or Seem

by FallenSoFar



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Day one: Krypton, F/F, General Danvers Week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21611785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallenSoFar/pseuds/FallenSoFar
Summary: When Astra meets a troubled young veteran in Argo City, everything she knows is about to be called into question.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Astra & Kara Danvers, Astra/Alex Danvers
Comments: 11
Kudos: 37
Collections: General Danvers Week 4





	All That We See or Seem

“—beautiful.”

The whisper comes from Astra’s left, jolting her from an unintended nap. Blinking slowly in the mid-afternoon light, she shakes off the remnants of dream she can’t quite remember to find herself seated on one of the benches in the arboretum. 

The source of the disruption is standing barely more than an arm’s length away. Backlit by Rao’s bright light they’re little more than a silhouette; one hand flattened against the window overlooking the vista of Argo City and head tilted up towards the skyline in a posture of awe. 

“Is this your first time in Argo?” Astra asks, half to distract from her embarrassment at being caught dozing in public.

“Ye-es…” The woman seems thrown by the question, unsure, and turns from the window to take a half step towards Astra. For half an instant, Astra thinks she glimpses something strange about her garb, but when she blinks the shadows resolve into the familiar black of the military guild.

“Astra – General Astra?” The woman asks, but not as though she is trying to place her, or to distinguish her from Alura. Her next words are resigned. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Apologies…”

“Alex.” 

“Apologies Alex,” Astra reaches out and grasps the woman’s shoulder, unsure why she feels compelled to touch her. “Allow me to buy you a drink and you can jog my memory – there’s a spot down by the artist’s guild that serves the best  _ Jaonti _ in the solar system.” 

The woman’s face tightens as though she is fighting a grimace, or trying not to cry, and she shrugs violently out of Astra’s hold, whirling to kick the bench. Both of Alex’s hands come up to clench in her hair, and she’s muttering what Astra is positive are curses. 

Astra tries interjecting twice, with no luck, and notices several passers-by start to give them disapproving looks. Steeling herself, she straightens her spine and takes a cleansing breath before snapping out a quiet but sharp: “Soldier, report!” 

Seemingly despite herself, Alex straightens, though she pins Astra with a glare. A glare that seems strangely familiar, stirring up feelings of amused respect which make it feel natural for Astra to raise an eyebrow. Demand a reply. 

“You were supposed to remember,” Alex sounds broken then; lost and angry. “To help!” 

Astra’s heart sinks.

_ War neurosis.  _ It’s a plague on the military guild, and Astra has seen it afflict the greenest initiate and most seasoned veteran alike. This isn’t even the first time a soldier has fixated on her. As Krypton’s youngest general, Astra has made a name for herself at home and among the stars, has built a reputation as a fierce protector and brilliant tactician. A stern but fair leader: scion of House Ze, with strong ties to House El – her twin standing in a prominent position on the judicial council. They feel like they know her, the people’s general, and it is both rewarding and dangerous. 

Just one ahmzeht ago, Alura had committed a Lieutenant to treatment in a medical facility in Kandor. Astra had served with him briefly on a disaster recovery mission off-world, and remembered a reserved but competent officer. By the time anyone recognised he was struggling with war neurosis the man had already succumbed to delusion, claiming to be on a mission to save Krypton. Further, to be married to Astra, and carrying out her orders.

“What was I supposed to help with?” Though Astra doesn’t remember the young soldier standing in front of her clearly, she is saddened to think of losing another bright spirit to the illness which has already claimed so many in the Military Guild. She hopes if she can keep Alex talking, a way to help will make itself clear.

“What do you know about a plant called the Black Mercy?” Alex meets the question with one of her own, eyes burning fever bright. Astra’s stomach lurches unexpectedly at the words, a frisson of dread running up her spine. 

“It’s said to be a parasite, which when attached to a sentient host induces a dreamstate...” Astra trails off as she notices their audience has grown. No longer casually disapproving passers-by, it seems almost every single head in the arboretum is turned towards the two women. 

“Friends of yours?” Her chin tilts towards the pair of security officers cutting a path through the afternoon crowd, and Alex shifts subtly to follow her gaze.

“No,” Alex has a wry kind of challenge in her gaze, “friends of yours?”

Astra is taken aback and fears it shows briefly on her face when the captain’s mouth quirks up in a sardonic half-smile. It’s the first hint she’s shown of a positive emotion since Astra woke up, and she counts it as a tentative victory, though she’s not sure what she’s done to earn the dark amusement.

The smile disappears as quickly as it arrived, Alex’s attention drawn to something over Astra’s shoulder. She doesn’t have to look to know that Alex has spotted a second pair of officers approaching from a flanking position. Standard operating procedure. Astra has worked with city security enough times to know that their next step will be to isolate the target. 

As if on cue, the pedestrians near the main entrance start filtering out into the surrounding streets, no doubt at a quiet word from an officer, or an update from one of the public Kelex units floating around. Before long, they’ll be the only ones in the park, and Astra will have to make a decision.

She should hand Alex over, she knows. 

The younger woman is clearly disturbed.

It would be for her own good.

Then Astra looks at her face, and she doesn’t seem  _ dangerous _ . Scared maybe, angry, but not a menace to society, and Astra aches with compulsion to  _ do _ something. 

Maybe it's the way Alex had looked standing at the window, unguarded, staring out at the city in awe. Maybe it’s that momentary look of broken desperation which had crossed her face when Astra had admitted to not remembering her.

Maybe Alex was right, and she was supposed to help.

The captain is looking over Astra’s shoulder now, face set into a determined mask, hands clenching and unclenching slowly. Tension sends fine tremors down her arms and Astra reads clearly her intention to run, to  _ fight _ . To lose, probably, but to go down swinging.

Astra makes a decision.

Behind Alex, the first security team has paused, pretending to consult a map while the final civilian stragglers clear the area. If they don’t move now, it’ll be too late to do anything, Alex will just be another statistic in a report on some politicians desk. So Astra takes a breath, quieting the tiny Alura voice in her head which is still insisting she leave this to the authorities, and holds out her hand.

“Do you trust me?”

“Do I have a choice?” Alex mutters, but she curls her hand around Astra’s, and doesn’t protest when she is pulled in close. Astra tucks their joined hands in close to her ribs, and ignores the unexpected warmth that spreads through her chest from the contact. 

“They don’t know that we’re aware of them yet.” She tilts her head down slightly to murmur in Alex’s ear, all too aware of the coiled tension radiating off the slight woman. 

“Relax. Best case scenario, this was a lover’s quarrel in an unfortunately public area but we’ve clearly reconciled our differences,” Alex snorts, and mutters something under her breath at this, and Astra follows the impulse to pinch her lightly on the arm before continuing, “and if that doesn’t work we’ll be closer to the exit than we are now.” 

Clearly some part of the plan is acceptable to the captain –and Astra can’t decide whether to be delighted or disgruntled by the clear skepticism– because she takes half a step closer, plastering herself along Astra’s side and staring up at her with starstruck eyes. So Astra begins to steer Alex towards the heart of the arboretum; and if her heart skips a beat, she tells herself it’s just adrenalin.

They only take seven casual steps, entwined like that, before a voice shouts at them to halt. Astra pulls them into a run then, grinning despite herself as they break through a line of trees into the shade of a grove and then further back, sprinting past a disused fountain and into the older, wilder part of the park. 

The neat pathways soon give way to overgrown trails under their feet, forcing Astra to release Alex’s hand and pull ahead to take the lead. Plunging into the undergrowth is like entering another world, the rich loamy scent transporting her beyond the spired towers and manufactured streets of Argo. There’s a tiny corner of her brain that expects to hear birdsong or the scuttling of small creatures, but instead the hush is only pierced by the sound of her own footfalls, and Alex panting behind her.

Moving quickly Astra bats aside a low hanging fern, vaults over a snarl of roots. She winces back from a branch which seems to appear out of nowhere to grab at her clothes, tearing a stinging line across her bicep. It's strange, she doesn't remember the park being this lush and verdant, could swear the shadows weren't this dark when she and Alura would play at Daxamite Invasion with the other children.  _ And shouldn’t they have reached the wall by now? _

The question has barely crossed Astra’s mind when she’s pulled up short by a pained grunt behind her. She sees an outstretched hand first, and follows it back to find Alex entangled in a series of grasping vines, straining to pull herself clear. Greenish grey vines, almost like tentacles, wrap around Alex’s left wrist and right ankle, appearing to have caught her mid-stride. The sight of a single, hungry looking bloom trips alarms in her head and she grasps Alex’s outstretched hand, lending her own weight to pull sharply away from the blood red flower.

A strangled yelp escapes Alex’s mouth, and they both stop dead, listening. There’s a shout, and a crash in the undergrowth somewhere behind them, distant but still closer than Astra would like. She exchanges a tense look with the other woman and moves to her entangled foot, motioning with a flick of her head for Alex to focus on freeing her hand. 

Alex’s boots aren’t regulation, which seems like a blessing from Rao in this situation. The high, archaic laces give Astra just enough room to wedge her fingers underneath the thickest part of the vine, fingernails grazing against the rubbery surface. She pulls, hard, but doesn’t gain any traction, the plant tightening its hold until Astra is forced to let go or risk getting trapped herself. 

Above her Alex’s body jerks, and Astra stands, moving to inspect her trapped hand. Alex is still struggling to remove the constraining vine, and her fingertips have a slight blue tinge to the tips where the circulation has been cut off. Astra can see furrows scratched into her skin, bleeding sluggishly where she’d tried to use her nails to pry the plant loose.

“Stop struggling. We're making it worse.” Astra reaches out to grab Alex’s free hand but finds herself slapped away with a snarl. The woman returns to her struggle, seemingly blind to the fact that if she keeps it up she may lose the appendage.

“Alex Danvers,” she remembers the captain's name after all, “stop.”

“I’m not giving up.” Each word is gritted out between clenched teeth. Alex must be in agonising pain but she keeps going, determined not to quit. Astra can’t remember if she’d ever been so committed to something as this woman is to whatever delusion is driving her forward.

“ _ We  _ are not giving up.” Astra reaches into a pocket to draw out her utility knife. She flicks open the blade, and is momentarily startled by the green tinged shine of the metal, remembering the recent upgrades after a brief moment and slightly put out not to have her old, tried and tested, nth metal knife with her.

Alex shrinks back, eyeing Astra and the knife with what seems an equal amount of trepidation, before giving a single tense nod. Wasting no time Astra grabs the vine a short distance under where it has latched onto the younger woman’s arm. Taking a deep breath, she slashes down in one strong decisive movement, afraid that doing anything less than severing the tendril completely will result in further damage.

The blade sinks through the vine as if it were a feast day cake and, unprepared for the lack of resistance, Astra finds herself needing to jerk her hand to a stop to avoid swinging the blade down too far. Pausing just long enough to confirm the tendrils wrapped around Alex's wrist have loosened, she bends to one knee and prepares to give the bottom vine the same treatment.

The vegetation here is thicker, but not as strangling, and Astra braces her shoulder against Alex’s leg to slice downwards between two thorns. The blade only makes it halfway through the vine before getting stuck, and Astra swears under her breath as the entire plant spasms violently and the knife is wrenched from her grip. 

Alex twists to look, dislodging the blade further, and Astra squeezes her knee in gentle warning. She needs to  _ stay still _ . The captain’s compliance is felt in the slight relaxing of her thigh where it presses against Astra, but her booted foot is trembling slightly. It’s only a matter of time before the strain of being caught in that awkward position will make muscles cramp, and Astra dreads to think what will happen to Alex’s ankle if she falls. 

Gritting her teeth, Astra plunges her hand into the tangled mass of vines. Fumbling blindly for a few seconds, she murmurs a brief ‘ _ thank Rao’ _ when her fingertips meet the handle – not the blade – of the knife. With the sound of their pursuers of their coming ever closer echoing in her ears Astra starts sawing hurriedly through the rest of the vine.

The two segments of vine finally separate with a wet  _ pop  _ and the loose end flops around like a serpent without its head. Astra has no time to marvel at the phenomenon though, hands grasping her shoulders and urging her up in response to a shout close by. 

“Your ankle?”

“Fine.” Alex nudges her slightly, and then they are running again. 

As they approach the outside edge of the arboretum Astra slows, shading her eyes to peer at the city skyline through the thinning canopy. The domed roof of the early education centre looms on the left, right where it should be, and she reaches a hand back to slow her accomplice. Alex reaches out and wraps her fingers around Astra’s elbow when she catches up, stepping close behind as they pick their way along the inside of the wall.

They take ten steps in the dappled light, then twenty. For a moment, despite having checked their position, Astra is sure she's followed the wrong path, can see nothing but wall ahead of them. Then the light shifts and the shadowy entrance to a utility corridor is revealed. 

The door is unlocked. Had never been locked in all the years she’d known about it: not when Alura had discovered it; not when they used it to launch sneak attacks during games; and not in any of the hundred times they’d used the corridor as a shortcut to get to class, or work, or home quickly. Still, Astra breathes a small sigh of relief as she gestures Alex into the clean, well-lit space.

“This way.” Astra leads the way around three corners and down a ladder, ears peeled for the followers they appear to have lost. When they emerge next to the transport hub she grasps Alex’s hand again, notices how the other woman appears lost again in the face of the bustling crowd. 

There’s a row of vacant transports waiting near the entrance to the hub, and Astra whispers a “keep casual” to Alex as she weaves them through the crowd towards it. At first, nobody appears to be paying the pair any mind, but slowly heads start to turn, one by one, and Astra imagines some sort of alert has been sent out. 

Swiping her uniform cuff along the sensor pad to unlock the vehicle once they are in range, Astra pushes Alex ahead of her through the curved hatch. She doesn’t relax until the door of the transport has sealed, and the coordinates are keyed in. 

Astra is taking them to the safest place she knows.

She’s taking Alex home.

**Author's Note:**

> Better late than never?


End file.
